Computer Security Resource Center

Computer SecurityResource Center

Public Comments: (1) Revised Draft Special Publication 800-73-4, Interfaces for Personal Identity Verification, and (2) Revised Draft Special Publication 800-78-4, Cryptographic Algorithms and Key Sizes for Personal Identity Verification, are now available
May 19, 2014

Draft #1: NIST announces that Revised Draft Special Publication 800-73-4,Interfaces for Personal Identity Verification, is now available for public comment. This document has been updated to reflect the disposition of comments that were received on the first draft of SP 800-73-4, which was published on May 13, 2013.

Removed the two new optional data elements from the Discovery Object and created new data objects to store this new information.

Modified the key-establishment protocol to add additional details and to address security issues that were raised in the public comments and in “A Cryptographic Analysis of OPACITY.”

NIST also requests comments on the pairing code, which is part of the new Virtual Contact Interface (VCI) of the PIV Card. Its purpose is to prevent skimming of cardholder data in wireless environment by an unauthorized wireless reader in the vicinity of the cardholder and to ensure that ‘cardholder consent’ for the release of cardholder data is enabled. The pairing code is part of the Virtual Contact Interface that provides for communication and enables wireless transactions between the PIV Card and NFC-enabled devices for authentication, signing or encryption. NIST assesses that the pairing code concept is the optimum method available to provide mitigation against a skimming threat.

NIST has received some comments objecting to the use of a pairing code to protect data against skimming in wireless environment and strongly recommending that this be removed. NIST is interested in receiving feedback on whether the new skimming protection measure shall be included on all PIV Cards that implement the VCI, or if it departments and agencies that issue the cards shall have the ability to disable this security control if there are specific use cases that conflict with pairing code function and alternate mitigating controls are available and identified.
(Endnote: Until now, signing and encryption functionalities have been restricted to the PIV Card’s contact interface and thus skimming has not been an issue)

Draft #2: NIST announces that Revised Draft Special Publication 800-78-4,Cryptographic Algorithms and Key Sizes for Personal Identity Verification, is now available for public comment. The document has been modified to remove information about algorithms and key sizes that can no longer be used because their "Time Period for Use" is in the past. Revised Draft SP 800-78-4 also reflects changes to align with updates in Revised Draft SP 800-73-4. This document has been updated to reflect the disposition of comments that were received on the first draft of SP 800-78-4, which was published on May 13, 2013.